Certain munitions such as land mines can be programmed to detonate in response to a specific event. For example, land mines can be programmed to distinguish between a truck and a tank. Further, the land mine can be programmed to detonate after recognition of a first, second, third, or any number of specific vehicles. Remote communication may be performed with certain mines for activation and deactivation. To prepare the communication hardware for operation, the device needs to be programmed according to frequency, time, and channel. Mines have a sophisticated protection mechanism to allow troops to handle them and program them in a field environment. However once the mine has been positioned, the mine cannot be reprogrammed without physically recovering the mine. Land mines typically have to be programmed before they are deployed to their fixed positions. Further, the programming of munitions has to be performed before any energy, e.g., from an embedded battery, is available within the munition. Therefore, it is desirable to program land mines without using munitions provided power.